Chapter 6: The Chart

At half past five on Monday evening, Han Zhiyuan sat at his desk with the door shut.

A thirty-page file lay open in front of him.

It was eight years old.

The cover said *Mrs Tong, 46, F. Bed 14.* The pages had gone soft at the corners from being handled on Sunday night.

He had not expected the name.

The trainee roster had come to his desk on Sunday, with the usual list of emergency contacts.

The fifth line down had read *Mother: Mrs Tong.*

He had read it twice.

Then he had gone down to the records room in his coat, at ten at night, and asked for the chart.

A bus had hit her on Gulou Avenue. Her liver was torn open.

He had been twenty-eight, the surgeon on call, and he had been very good.

He remembered the third stitch.

That was where his right hand had begun to shake for the first time.

He had finished the repair with his left hand steadying his right, and she had lived.

In the morning there had been a boy on the bench outside the theatre, seventeen, in a school uniform.

The boy had pushed a paper cup of vending-machine tea into his hand and said, "Drink it, Doctor. You look terrible."

It was the worst tea Han had ever had.

He had written the boy a note afterward, in a hand he could barely control, and had never seen him again.

Now there was a trainee called Tong Yu, who brought Longjing, and who had stood on a wet stair that morning and laughed.

Han closed the file.

He had kissed him.

He had been thirty-six years old, and he had never kissed anyone.

He had done it badly, in a stairwell, to a man who worked under him.

The pill was holding. His right hand lay on the blotter and did not move.

It was the only part of him that was calm.

A knock came at six exactly, and Tong Yu came in with nothing in his hands and shut the door behind him.

"Sit down, Dr Tong."

"I'd rather stand, Director. If it's all the same."

Han rose too, because it seemed to be the only thing to do with his legs.

"This morning I did something I had no right to do," he said.

"You are a trainee on my service. I am your senior by eleven years."

"I'm twenty-five. I was standing there," said Tong Yu.

"You had no way to refuse a senior."

"Director." Tong Yu's voice was very gentle. "Did I seem to want to refuse?"

Han had no answer for that, and Tong Yu seemed to know it.

"I would like you to leave my service," said Han, which was not what he had planned to say.

"I will write you the best reference this hospital has produced."

"Zhongshan will take you," said Han. "So will Peking Union. Within the year you will be scrubbing on cases I cannot give you here."

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